Best reasonably priced tripod/ballhead combo?

[dave_whatever]

Evening all

I'm probably going to be able to scrape together some cash to get a lighter/taller tripod soon along with a better ballhead later this year. Anyone got any experience or words of wisdom on carbon fibre tripods in the distinctly sub-gitzo pricerange? The choice seems to be the established names like manfrotto/velbon/slik, and then the far east ones like giottos, feisol, induro, redsnapper etc etc.

To nail specs down a bit, looking for a tripod about the 140cm mark with the column down, 3 section, weighing less than 1.9kg. Will only be supporting a light 4x5 plus doing double duty with occaisional medium format or digital, so doesn't need to be able to support a bankvault or an anvil or anything ridiculously heavy or torque-generating. I would like to stick with lever locking legs rather than twist lock style though.

(If anyone wants a laugh, my current tripod is a manfrotto 190 with a 486RC2 head. Works surprisingly well though, just a bit too short and the manfrotto release can work loose).

Cheers

[Emmanuel Bigler]

Hello from France.
I have a Berlebach Nr. 8013 wich does quite fit within your specifications for weight @2.2 kg instead of 1.9.
3-section, without centre colum, the Berlebach 8013 it is rated for 10 kg.
More comments here nearby in the forum
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2134
My ballhead is an Arca Swiss B1. Very compact, its successor Z1 is even more compact and lighter.

[dave_whatever]

Hmmm thats an interesting suggestion, but its not really tall enough for me, and at 2.2kg a bit on the heavy side. At that weight I'd probably get any old manfrotto 055 and have more height and spend half a much money, as the extra load capacity of that Berlebach would be wasted on my gear. My heaviest camera+lens+6x17 at the moment doesn't even top 3kg.